Call for Participation
Hi everyone, I am happy to say I am now accepting participants for the first study, we are ideally looking for around 50, so if you鈥檙e interested please get involved. Participants will need to be available for 10 weekly sessions between 29th September and 12th December 2025. Participants need to be available for one session a week lasting approximately 90 minutes each. If you are interested please review the information sheet, download and complete the Consent Form provided (you will need your ULAN email) and return it to this email: sbarrett6@lancashire.ac.uk then complete the survey: Call for Participation Survey (Microsoft Forms) ...
Study Dates Changed
Hi everyone, Due to unforeseen circumstances the study dates have changed. The study will now take place between the W/C 13th October and 12th December. This also means the length of the study is now 8 weeks. The rest of the study including the games remain the same. We are still looking for participants if you are interested, and please share with your friends as well as anyone who may be interested. ...
Introduction
Hello, my name is Shannon. This PhD research project aims to understand and evaluate the effects of different video game genres on frequent gamers cognitive abilities. This will be a multi-year study with 3 main phases of research, conducted during the first semester of the University term. The research focuses on these genres: First-Person Shooter, Puzzle, Real-Time Strategy, Role-Playing Game, and a Control. Participants, who are university students who play games for over 5hrs a week, will be assessed over a 10 week period to see how these games affect their attention, ability to switch tasks and memory span. ...
BCS Conference Paper
Hello once more, I have submitted a paper, about this research project to the Doctoral Consortium track at the British Computing Society鈥檚 HCI 2025 (Human-Computer Interaction) Conference, hosted in Wales this November. I am proud to say it has been accepted, I will be presenting it at the conference, and will be published as part of the conference proceedings after, available online. I will update with a link to the paper when it is available. ...
Project Update
Hello again, I am currently working on getting the University lab that the research will be conducted in set up, and the games installed. The tests that will be used for this study are in their final refinement stages and recruitment for the study will begin shortly.
Supplementary Research
Hello there, I have recently conducted some additional research unrelated to my PhD in a college engagement session hosted by the department, with my fellow researcher Christianna Petrichou. She is also completing her PhD research at the University, focusing on Artificial Intelligence, Morality and human perceptions of AI. We hosted a session where students could participate in board games both independently and with a Wizard-of-Oz style authority facilitating the game. The students would each play Monopoly, Cluedo in French to present an additional level of challenge they had to figure out how to play as a group, and the social deduction game Werewolf hosted by a telepresence robot, the students believed that the robot was independently running the game for them, when in reality it was run by a third party taking cues from myself and what they could see through the camera. ...
Ethical Approval
Hello everyone, this project has received ethical approval from the University under ethics code: SCIENCE 01176. If you have any questions or concerns please contact me at: sbarrett6@lancashire.ac.uk or my Director for Studies Prof. Janet Read at JCRead@lancashire.ac.uk. If you feel your concerns are not dealt with appropriately please contact OfficerForEthics@lancashire.ac.uk.